


All My Poverty

by Paraxdisepink



Category: Hornblower
Genre: Conversations, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-21
Updated: 2013-03-21
Packaged: 2017-12-05 23:57:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/729357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Paraxdisepink/pseuds/Paraxdisepink
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wellard looks up to Archie and the two of them discuss events that have happened aboard “Renown.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	All My Poverty

The leather-bound book weighed heavier than it should have in my hands. I was not on  
watch and therefore had no need to jerk my head up at every footstep, nor to frown  
ruefully that I had been caught off guard. There was no cause for me to stare blankly at  
the pages or to take special care in turning them slowly enough that no one should see I  
was not truly reading, or quickly enough that no one should think I was troubled. I had  
only sought a quiet corner of the gun deck to read and none of the crew should find that  
amiss.

The Captain was locked away in his cabin where he belonged. I felt no remorse in wishing him dead. Hobbs was with him, or perhaps in his hammock below, and there was no one else likely to take notice of me. I was merely Henry Wellard, a lonely midshipman, a little boy who could scarcely end a brawl between two ratings, no one capable of orchestrating any real treachery. Mr. Hobbs was merely a gunner and not well liked among the crew. No court martial in Kingston would take his word over that of Mr. Hornblower or Mr. Kennedy. And Mr. Hobbs . . . Mr. Hobbs had not even been there. . . . 

My fingers shook, wrinkling the thin paper between them. My heart began pounding anew. Any moment now they would all see the sweat dotting my brow. It was too much to hope that they took me for a simple coward broken by my beatings, not on this ship, not while I pushed back the image of Mr. Kennedy and the Captain with such jitters, as though I feared the scene would play across my face for all to see. 

It was unbearable. I drew in a deep breath, taking one hand from the book and reaching into the inside pocket of my coat for the small bottle Dr. Clive had given me. I tipped it back into my mouth, only a small sip, swallowing hard. God, how long until it took effect? I replaced the bottle and took out my handkerchief instead, dabbing at my face before looking down and remembering to turn the page. 

“Preparing for your examination already, Mr. Wellard, after only how many months at sea? And they say Mr. Hornblower is ailed of ambition.” 

The light and purely lyrical voice of Lieutenant Archie Kennedy should not have startled me, but even his banter now had me slamming shut my eyes and fighting the image that came to my mind with a gasp. The Captain, his pistols, Lieutenant Hornblower’s frozen face, and Mr. Kennedy, not a spark of fear in his manner as he took those perilous steps. 

My palms had grown too warm. I slammed the book shut, pressing it in my lap with both hands where Mr. Kennedy might not see their trembling. 

“It is only sonnets, sir.” My lips quivered on the words, my cheeks heating instantly with shame. One hand came up in a late salute, though I doubted Mr. Kennedy was a man to note such gestures. No, one golden brow only quirked in surprise before his mouth curved up in a grin, sweeping me up with some private jest. That was simply Mr. Kennedy’s way. 

That small smile filled me with enough confidence to raise my head as a man should do. Archie Kennedy stood crowned with a golden halo beneath his hat, where the candles hanging above him reflected their light in his hair. I gazed into his angelic face above that stark blue uniform – donned without any special pride or contempt, any real care – but he was no angel. I had caught whispers, mere snatches. Lieutenant Kennedy was a strange man, He had conquered the ghosts of some affliction, they said, survived captivity, torture, and illness. It must have been true, for he carried himself with an odd gravity beneath his aristocratic brass. Oh, he was not like Hornblower at all, who was so steadfastly one thing; Mr. Kennedy was bloody entrancing. 

“Ah, and all the better.” His tone was airy and cool, as it had been when he had approached me the morning after my first punishment. Still, I carried the notion in my gut that he was more deliberate than he seemed. “If our heads were filled with nothing but navigation and strategy, Mr. Wellard, we should never have any decent conversation.” 

I stared at him, puzzled by his sardonic tone. His lips twitched with a bare smile, as if to suggest he could say this only to me. “Mr. Hornblower does not like sonnets, sir?” It was the simplest reply I could conjure, perhaps because I wished to steer him away from asking of my wounds, as Hornblower had. Christ, how my face had burned from the Third Lieutenant’s pity. Mr. Kennedy had done none of that, he had simply stepped close at my side, and under the cover of that casual smile had . . . . 

A hundred times I wondered why he never looked down on me, given the way he snickered behind Buckland’s back so freely. Surely I was no better at my duties than that twit, or perhaps he saved his wicked tongue for his superiors and I was of no real consequence to him. 

“Mr. Hornblower has no use for sonnets, Mr. Wellard,” he said with the fond frustration one could only have for a loved one, and I wondered at that too. “They don’t win battles, you see?” 

“Oh, but they do, sir,” I insisted more firmly than perhaps was proper toward a superior officer. What had come over me? I had not wanted to speak of this. “I recounted a favorite during my . . .” 

I did not finish. Something in the fluttering of his lids required that I not. Those blue eyes were upon me, though nothing in their clear depths suggested pity that I had been the Captain’s whipping boy, nor disapproval that I was slouched on the planks of the deck with my coat not buttoned properly and my hat awry. He never demanded I be anything, only that the others respect me. There was something in that unspoken grace that made my heart swell to look on him. 

“A favorite, Mr. Wellard?” He dropped down beside me, the skirts of his blue coat falling on the wood where the dirty feet of the crew had been. He had no care for that, only looked to me over that small nose of his, his blue eyes bright with interest. 

My hands moved from my book, not to open it, only to turn it over. I looked down at it and let those eloquent words I so loved flow from my tongue. “’I do forgive thy robbery, gentle thief, although thou steal thee all my poverty: and yet love knows it is a greater grief to bear love’s wrong, than hate’s own injury.’” I gazed over at him to be certain I had the verse right, as if it were some tactical judgment on which he knew better than I, as if the smile with which he favored me were a surer source of verification than the book in my hands. 

He reached across the few inches between us where we sat side by side. His hand came to rest over the leather of my book, stirring up strange flutters under my skin where his fingers were warm against mine. “’Lascivious grace, in whom all ill well shows, kill me with spites yet we must not be foes.’” He finished the verse so softly I could have wept at the quiet passion in his voice, but tears were not permitted here. 

Instead, I let him take my book from me and then folded my arms across my lap. “There is a line for each blow, sir,” I confessed to him with a sigh. “That’s how I thought of it.” I frowned to remember the wounds beneath my clothes, still tender though I could not feel them now. I could feel nothing but tingling warmth and a sort of numbness in my body that I had become accustomed to over the past days. 

“And two more besides.” Mr. Kennedy wore no smile as he said this; there was only something rueful in his voice. It amazed me how he could embrace a man with his laughter and then stretch oceans of a hand’s space in his rare melancholy moments. “It fools you into thinking it is over before it should be, and you think this wicked?” I nodded, my cheeks stinging, and yet I wanted to laugh with him and seal this childish secret. But then he titled his head and peered straight into my eyes with some haunting honesty that stole my breath. “God willing you will only have to recount sonnets, Mr. Wellard, and not entire plays.” 

Again my skin ached with an uncomfortable heat. I found my eyes darting, hungry for the small details of my uniform, the buttons, the wrinkles, anything but him. He was a superior officer and as such I should not bear witness to his pain or allow this saintly picture of him beside me to be marred by images of transgression or humiliation, not while he bestowed this benediction on me. 

I turned to my book, captive in one of his hands, and could only smile clumsily when he offered it back. It was warmer for his having held it. I brought it close with both hands, against my heart, sure that he would not scorn such a display. “My father reckoned I shall never become the great officer, sir, with my nose in this sentimental drivel.” 

Mr. Kennedy angled his head, laughing his haughty, affronted laugh – as he would at any rebuke shot his way. “Drivel, Mr. Wellard? How unfortunate to be the son of a man of poor taste.” My eyes went wide and I might have balked that even the dead were not safe from his jibes, but I lowered my face, ashamed of my own smile. It was only a moment later that I blinked and looked back at him, understanding that he was not being wicked or mocking at all, only lamenting with me. 

“My father upholds that he sent me to sea to save me from poxy actresses at the playhouse. My heart always did fall to pieces there, but he never knew the half of it.” Mr. Kennedy made nothing of the great irony of that decision, and I did not think it was because the absurdity of it had missed him. Still, I could not help but consider him with these women, wondering if they saw the spoiled aristocrat who vexed Mr. Bush so deeply, or if his touch was carefully tender and if they found forgiveness under his blue gaze for being plain or unworthy as I did. “The old Earl may have spoken more to his gillie than he did to me, but I know in his way he is fond of me. That I should ‘concern myself with something greater than my own fancy,’” he mocked with a sour twist to his mouth and a wrinkling of his small nose. “My great secret is that he’ll never know how profoundly I have failed him.” 

This he did not lament, but simply grinned impishly at what he had got away with. Again, I suffered that uneasy swarming in my belly. Mr. Hornblower’s face came again to the front of my mind, like stone and yet livid with fright in the shadows. My heart stopped and I thought it was more than the darkness that had blinded Mr. Kennedy to his friend’s panic that night. I wet my lips. I did not know what to say, only the clumsy courtesies of a junior officer tumbled from my mouth. 

“You were admirable, sir, when we saw action last.” And quick to recover afterward, the first to roll his eyes Sawyer’s way. 

“Ah, thank you, Mr. Wellard.” His blue eyes brimmed with puzzlement, as if none had praised his conduct under fire before. I supposed being so close to Hornblower would saddle one with that curse. “We must all fight for each other now, Mr. Wellard.” He sighed as though suddenly tired. I supposed also that the constant energy he seemed to have must take its toll. “It is strange to say so when I think back on my first day aboard ship. I wondered how I could belong among men too witless to care whether Hamlet was mad or not?” 

The wistful note in his voice brought me to stare out over the deck for the first time in long minutes, at the dark, insignificant shapes of the men scurrying by. It was only then that I realized I had forgotten them and wished to forget them again, venturing a tight but wicked grin in Mr. Kennedy’s direction. “Or swines who do not know how to carve the main course at supper!” 

He laughed his quick bubbling laugh, too like champagne, that laugh that swept me up and made me an accomplice in his secret disdain for the world. My amusement was quickly traded for a sense of conspiracy. I dared to slide but an inch nearer to him. If there was anyone on this ship to be trusted, surely it was the man at my side. 

“Or where we might be hanged as commoners, sir,” I ventured in a low voice. “Mr. Hobbs endorses that punishment, sir.” Every inch of me threatened to quiver. I could feel the rope around my neck already. My skin crawled. I closed my eyes. I saw the Captain falling. I saw Mr. Kennedy’s clenched hands and then the flare of that pistol shot Mr. Hornblower had been so afraid of. 

My eyes flew open. Mr. Kennedy’s hand was on my arm, steadying me though there was nowhere I could fall with my back against the wood. His eyes were on my face, no longer dreamy or devil-may-care, but dark and cold as the blue English waters weeks behind us. 

“Hobbs,” he repeated, a hard edge to his voice I had not heard before. It frightened me that I might have displeased him or overstepped my bounds. Yet there was no righteous fury, no indiscrete outpouring to profess any contempt I knew he would not find me worth the trouble to hide. He only took his hand away, his expression dull with dispassion. “Hobbs was not there, Mr. Wellard.” His simple reply seemed to dismiss the matter out of hand, but I knew better. Mr. Kennedy could not expect to don the mask of superior officer to fool me, not after he had laughed and spoke of his past with me. It was a price he must pay for his brazen and peculiar manner. 

I longed to speak of that night, not the simple movements and gestures my eyes had seen, but the whole shivering truth of it. That I had delighted. That I had felt rage. That I felt nothing but satisfaction to know that Sawyer reposed in a drugged sleep now, like some minotaur in his cave, That I regretted he was not dead. Hobbs saw this in me, I knew – I wore my sins like ornaments – and I ached to learn that this man, a creature of more generosity than disdain, harbored the same in his heart. I knew he would forgive me for it, and that would mean more than any pardon for my utter uselessness aboard this ship. 

And I longed to lay my head against his strong shoulder and confess to him, to my greatest shame, that when he had spoken for me on deck only flattery had cut through my terror, but when he had approached the Captain to protect Hornblower on that terrible night all of that had exploded into something burning and bitter. 

“You were in danger, sir,” my words were a heavy whisper. I could only hope he understood my meaning. He would not meet my eyes, but kept them on the men too far away to overhear. I looked toward them, only to see it all in my mind again, that bright pistol shot, Hornblower springing forward, and then the image of my own hands, reaching out, wanting to hurt, wanting to keep Mr. Kennedy safe. 

“We were all in danger, Mr. Wellard. But now that Clive has ceased his prevaricating all is well, you see.” The brisk chiding was delivered with a slight tilt of his head and his pleased cat’s smile. The worst of it was that in this playful display I think he truly was honest with me. Dear God, I found myself shaking my head, had he no care for his own life, and was he blind to the power he had over Mr. Hornblower? 

“Sir . . .” I do not know what I meant to say or ask, only that some part of me rued that I might never have the chance again. There came the sound of heels clicking against the planks, turning our heads toward the stairs. It was Mr. Bush, who gave only one of his steady and efficient glances at the men cleaning the guns before turning his focus upon Mr. Kennedy and I. 

I offered him a salute as quickly as I could get my hand up, but still by habit now I lowered my gaze to his feet. What did he make of me? Likely nothing, as he had told the Captain days ago. Clearly the events on this ship had perplexed him, but I knew by the way his eyes dismissed me that I was not a part of that mystery. His attention was for Mr. Kennedy alone. 

“Mr. Kennedy, Mr. Hornblower has spent quite some time looking for you.” His voice was sharp with the impatience he was wont to show the Fourth Lieutenant. His expression was tight with disapproval for the book between us and the smile he had no doubt seen Mr. Kennedy give me. “I suggest you don’t keep a superior officer waiting.” 

For all the better sense in me, my eyes went wide and my lips opened. Mr. Bush was either the most witless creature on this ship or too gifted with the ability to say the wrong thing. My stomach turned at the tension between these two men. I wondered vaguely if they would notice should I slip away. 

I could not. My body was cold with worry as Mr. Kennedy raised his chin, blue eyes flashing with all his ruffled pride, and hurt too, perhaps. “Do you, Mr. Bush?” He cocked his head, and with that cool challenge the man who for the past moments had been soft and comforting toward me vanished. In his place was the high and haughty toff who had vexed Bush at first sight. 

Mr. Bush’s brows rose, sorely confounded. I thought perhaps he was not so clever after all, or was simply too practical to give a thought to Mr. Kennedy’s erratic moods. “Well, he does depend on you doesn’t he, Mr. Kennedy,” he muttered in a more flustered tone. Mr. Kennedy blinked and then without preamble curled his lips into a smile that was neither haughty nor mocking, only abashed. This, Mr. Bush did not seem to note or care for either, but I did, and silently shared Mr. Kennedy’s chagrin that I too had imagined the insult. I did wonder at his effect on me then. 

Mr. Kennedy sighed, his eyes darting to me and then to Bush. From Hornblower, those glances would be a warning not to question each other when he had gone, but from Mr. Kennedy I could not guess. Perhaps it appealed to his sense of mischief to warn us that he already knew what we might say. Whatever it was, he simply wrinkled his nose and let it pass. 

“If I don’t find him he’ll have the boats out thinking I’ve had a fit and fallen over the side.” He rose to his feet, so fondly bitter in this statement that Bush and I shared a look of puzzlement. Neither of us dared to inquire, despite Mr. Kennedy’s conversational tone. No, we let him go, for neither Mr. Bush’s authority, nor my sonnets could keep him from Hornblower. 

“Mr. Wellard,” he stood, adjusting his hat, blue eyes warm under its brim. Then he brought one arm across his middle, giving me a small bow. “I commend you, sir, on your fine taste in sonnets. Mr. Bush,” he gave only a tight nod before he turned, crossing the deck in the direction of his cabin where he had decided Mr. Hornblower would be. 

Mr. Bush did not remain long with me, a fact I accepted as more evidence of his lack of interest in me. He flashed me a look that I did not understand and wordlessly took his leave of me, fading into the cluster of men, growling orders at them. Relief should have filled me, considering Hobbs’ threat; at least one important man aboard the ship had fallen for my ruse of inconsequence. But Mr. Bush had left me more shaken than I had been before. The fact that he had seen Mr. Kennedy and I together somehow seemed more dangerous than what had passed in the hold. 

And Mr. Kennedy . . . . At last I remembered the book in my lap, turning it over and pressing it between my hands. My belly was unsteady with the feeling that something more dire had been decided in our odd conversation than which sonnet I happened to like best, though why would he speak to me as an equal? 

Perhaps the truth was an easy one, I frowned to myself. Perhaps the son of an earl only ached to speak with someone who understood his old life. Perhaps somewhere in his well-bred heart he could not abide answering to common men such as Mr. Bush. Yet I did not think it was snobbery – that was only his occasional mask – nor I did I think, given his stark indifference to what had passed in the hold, that he had come for comfort. Not from me. I could only look down to my book, and for all my puzzlement smile that he had praised my taste in sonnets.


End file.
